The Philharmonia loudspeaker ($50,000/pair), designed by Jean Nouvel and the French audio-engineering firm Amadeus, is the first consumer-level product from a company whose specialty is studio monitors
Shown in prototype form, without logos, Realization is Kubala-Sosna's new flagship cable line. With introductory pricing in effect until July, interconnects and speaker cable are $10,000/1m pair, and cost $1800 for each additional meter. Prices will rise to $11,000/$2000.
"The Dark Lord has the most advanced planar-magnetic transducer that can be designed and manufactured," claimed Colich, seen with his hand on His Lordship in the photo above
"Far better flexibility is the key," said the company's Brian Von Bork (above), as he held up both the Iridium interconnect and the company's new Clear Beyond flagship interconnect ($3750/1m pair)
Although you may associate Elac solely with Andrew Jones's expanding collection of bargain-priced loudspeakers, the 90-year old German company actually has a wide range of products at various price points. "We're famous for a lot of bass from small cabinets," said Rolf Janke (above), head of research and development, as he discussed Elac's new 90th anniversary Concentro loudspeaker ($70,000/pair).
Siltech's Triple Crown power cable (approx. $13,683.40/1.5m at the current exchange rate) is a pure, mono-crystal silver design that uses stabilized air-core insulation and Furutech connectors
Since you'll see the same smiling faces in two successive cable-company blogs, let's start by saying that cables from Crystal Cable and Siltech are made in the same factory, but have very different sounds
An evolution of the original Genesis 5, which was designed by Arnie Nudell and released in 1994, the Genesis Maestro ($30,000/pair), designed by Gary Koh (above), is a highly efficient loudspeaker that can be driven by just a few watts.
Rogue now introduces their first headphone amp/preamplifier, the RH-5 ($2495), which not only looks sleek and timeless in that oval-windowed Rogue way, it features three line-level RCA inputs and one pair of balanced XLR inputs.
Grand Prix Audio has two new equipment racks. The first is the four-post Monaco Nouvelle (on the left in the photo above, approx. $27,000-$30,000 for a four-shelf rack, depending upon options)
Distributor Axiss Audio was showing the new Piega Coax 711 loudspeaker ($25,000/pair). Everything in the speakerincluding its coaxial ribbon tweeter/midrange, bass drivers, and all-aluminum enclosureis designed and manufactured by the Swiss company.
As Stereophile's minister without portfolio, my goal was to find something interesting that didn't quite fit into traditional categories. The prize was an introduction, at a Harman demo room in the Hard Rock Casino/Hotel, to Lexicon's SL-1 loudspeaker prototype (price TBD) and the SoundSteer technology that distinguishes it.
In addition to having an awesome sounding setup in a smallish room, Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield was putting the final polish on the new Neo MiND. The Neo is a network streamer and music player that supports most PCM formats up to 24/192 and has a variety of output jacks for connection to your DAC. For networking, Bluetooth, ethernet and WiFi is included in addition to a SimLink in and out. Track sample rate and input choice are indicated on the front panel.
It's bad enough that CES makes us advertise for Sony everywhere we go with those bright yellow lanyards. Now they've added a new "feature" to our badges: how long you've been going to CES.